Softer Brexit now Johnson has gone?

The Guardin is really on an up! Johnson has gone and so no-one supports a 'hard Brexit' any more (or will tell devilish lies to support one).

Collapsing public support suggests Brexit is anything but done

Most people think Brexit has gone badly, a UK survey finds, and Johnson has left behind a mess of problems for a new PM

...recent polling suggests support for Brexit in the UK has collapsed – and the outgoing prime minister’s critics might confidently argue today that Johnson leaves a mess of issues behind rather than the “certainty and stability” that he claimed to have secured 18 months ago.

For all of the talk in 2019 of having struck a great deal, the government has in recent weeks threatened to unilaterally rip up a hard won and crucial agreement over the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland if the EU does not agree to a fundamental overhaul – despite the Conservative manifesto on which Johnson formed his government committing to no renegotiations.

Meanwhile, the trade deal has left Britain’s fishing communities screaming betrayal, unhappy with their paltry gains and facing expensive barriers to export what they have caught...There has been a “steep decline” in the number of trading relationships Britain has with the EU as small businesses have become bogged down in the new red tape, according to a study by the London School of Economics. The Office for Budget Responsibility, the government spending watchdog, said earlier this year that Brexit “may have been a factor” in the UK lagging behind all other G7 economies in its post-pandemic recovery.

most worrying of all for those who are protective of Johnson’s Brexit legacy is the changing face of public opinion. The latest YouGov poll has found that every region of the UK now believes Brexit was an error, with 55% of those questioned believing that Brexit has gone badly compared with 33% who say it has gone well.

Steady on a bit though...

Few in Westminster, beyond the Liberal Democrats, are suggesting that the UK is poised to rejoin the EU. But the very manner in which Brexit was “done” appears to have left it brittle, the polls suggest. Britain’s relationship with the 27 EU member states remains a stubbornly open question. For those who believe that Britain’s destiny remains as free-wheeling country outside the EU’s single market and customs union, there can be little confidence that anything on that front has been settled.

 

It was always Johnson's fault though:

Those who worked alongside Johnson in government, and in opposition to him at the negotiating table, point to the cause of this mess of issues being not only the substance of what was negotiated but that it was done with a misplaced boosterism....

“He certainly pushed the boundaries of what one could expect a British prime minister to do very, very far,” Riekeles [diplomatic adviser to M Barnier] said. “He negotiated, signed an international agreement and had the House of Commons ratify it one day, only to walk back on it the next.”

Riekeles added: “If the objective was to satisfy an important part of the Conservative party and to tick boxes in terms of Brexit rhetoric, then of course they got that. But not if the aim was to have the best possible relations with the EU and properly get Brexit done – get it done and start a constructive relationship where one works together in a neighbourly way, to address common and global problems. Instead, relations are very complicated, and the cost of that is bigger for the UK than the EU.”

[Barwell,former Chief of Staff for T May]  saidJohnson was the least willing to compromise of all the Brexiters and refused to acknowledge the difficult choices that had to be made over Northern Ireland’s special circumstances, describing the problem as the “tail wagging the dog”....[and he] would be surprised if we rejoined in the medium term but I would be equally surprised if a future government didn’t negotiate a closer deal.”

Brexit, he [Barwell] suggested, is far from done.

Rejoice, rejoice! Hang on though...misery arrived for Graun readers today:

Hummus supplies to dip as weather and Ukraine war cause chickpea shortage

Growers are warning of a global chickpea shortage, endangering supplies of hummus just as barbecue season gets into gear...The price of a range of hummus products in the main British supermarkets has risen by up to 100% since January, according to data supplied to the Guardian by the research group Assosia. 

To be fair (why?), the rag also reports that

Chickpeas are a key source of protein in India and the Middle East, where households are already struggling to cover rising costs of food imports such as wheat.  ...a development which could have serious consequences for countries that rely on the pulses as an essential source of protein.